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Caltech Scientists's Kickstarter Project: Nanoart

Here's an interesting Kickstarter project looking for some (crowd) funding: a Caltech scientist is looking to raise $50,000 to create "nanoart". Kickstarter is an online website which allows users to crowd source funding for their projects, and is now listing a project from Caltech physicist Sameer Walavalkar, to create silicon nanostructures which are pictures, text, and portraits, which are carved directly into silicon. Walavalkar, who is a postdoc at Caltech in physics, says that he wants to help people blend blend science, technology and art in the project, the final result of which will be a personal, etched chip--and a mounted, high resolution, scanning electron image of the etching--the only way to actually view that art after it is produced. The project is $554 towards the $50,000 goal for the project. Walavalkar's project is not entirely unprecedented--chip designers have long embarked on "chip graffiti", placing drawings, words, initials, and other features on unused seiconductor space--but it appears the project is one of the few to offer the ability for anybody to get their own art etched onto a chip.